


One thousand and one nights

by Aesoleucian



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Statement, The End
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-20 02:41:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17613908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aesoleucian/pseuds/Aesoleucian
Summary: Statement of Elodie Cui regarding her recurring sleep paralysis, given October 4, 2004.





	One thousand and one nights

I’m sure you know all about sleep paralysis here. It must be a really common false report at a paranormal research institution. I’ve known about it for a while too, ever since Adil got hired at the Starbucks where I work, the one on Leadenhall Street. Adil gets sleep paralysis a lot and it’s almost impossible to stop him from telling everyone about it in vivid detail. He’ll go on about the pure terror every time he wakes up one hundred per cent certain there’s someone standing in the corner of his room with a knife. But the way he tells it, it’s hard to take him seriously. In the light of day he doesn’t sound afraid. He makes it a joke. I guess I thought that if it ever happened to me it wouldn’t be that bad. Well, last Sunday I found out firsthand.

I don’t know what time it was when I woke up, because I couldn’t turn my head or move at all, though from what I know now it must have been pretty early in the night. It wasn’t really my priority anyway because the moment I woke up I was terrified. I didn’t even know what I was terrified _of_ yet, just that _something_ was in my room and it was going to hurt me, it was already hurting me. I couldn’t breathe. When I opened my eyes I realized there was a physical, crushing weight on my chest, and that what was on me was the hazy black outline of a figure. My mind was frantically trying to figure out what it was, but I couldn’t see it properly, so I was just lying there staring at it with my heart going a million miles an hour and my brain tripping over itself every time it started to have a thought.

And then it spoke, in a low voice barely above a whisper. “Don’t go back to sleep. You’re going to die.”

I couldn’t possibly have gone back to sleep if I wanted to. There was a woman sitting on me, threatening to kill me, and I _still couldn’t move_. I tried just to clench my hand into a fist but my muscles wouldn’t respond to me. I couldn’t do anything. I was totally helpless.

I don’t know how long I lay there staring up at her, certain that I was going to die at any moment. It can’t have been more than half an hour before she slowly slid off my chest and onto my legs, and then backward to sit hunched at the foot of the bed. I couldn’t see her eyes in the dark but I was convinced she was watching me. But I could breathe again, and I could move. Shaking, I sat up against the headboard and pulled my knees up to my chest, because I didn’t want my feet anywhere near her. I know I wasn’t thinking clearly. I probably should have called the police, but you have to understand, I was still mostly asleep and I thought if I did anything she didn’t like she’d kill me.

But now that I could move and breathe, as the minutes wore on without her doing anything I started to wonder if she was actually even there or just a hallucination. It’s so dark in my room at night that it was impossible to tell her apart from the open closet door I knew was behind her. So I slowly, slowly reached out and turned on my light.

I almost screamed. There _was_ a woman sitting on the end of my bed, with her knees pulled up to her chin just like me. She had dark skin and her hair pushed back away from her face by a sweatband, and she was wearing what I can only describe as business casual… without any shoes on. At first it looked like her eyes were nothing but shadowed pits, but as she tilted her head up I realized they were just closed. She opened them and looked directly at me, and she said, again, “Don’t go back to sleep. You’re going to die.”

“What are you?” I said in a hoarse whisper that sounded too close to her own voice.

“I’m the end,” she said. Just that, toneless and soft. And then her face split open in a huge grin, like she thought that was the funniest thing in the world.

I think I told her to just kill me, then, but she shook her head and she said she wasn’t going to kill me. How could I possibly believe her? I started talking to her then. I think I was just trying to give her reverse Stockholm Syndrome, you know, so she’d like me too much to kill me. I introduced myself and started talking about my work and my little brother and how he was going to graduate secondary school soon and anything else I could think of. She didn’t move or say anything but it made me feel a lot better, like she couldn’t kill me as long as I was talking.  But my eyelids started to get heavy the longer I talked and I had to pause every second sentence to yawn. By the time I checked the clock it was just past four in the morning and I could barely keep my eyes open. Every time I blinked, she moved closer. At first I wasn’t sure, but when I realized what was happening I got this jolt of adrenaline and scrambled back up. But she was back at the foot of the bed. I couldn’t stay life-or-death scared for that long, and I began to nod off again. This time I was too tired to move. I could only mumble something incoherent about my cousin’s wedding as her silhouette grew bigger and bigger and the weight settled back onto my chest. I couldn’t speak any more, or even breathe, just feel her cold gentle fingers sliding around my neck as sleep began to claim me.

That’s when my alarm clock went off. I jolted up to sitting and the woman was gone like she’d never been there, except for the ache in my ribs. Like in fairy tales where the devil gets chased away by the crowing rooster: morning had come, and I’d survived her. It was still dark outside, of course—my mornings start earlier than a lot of other people’s because I have to get to work an hour or more before it actually opens. I was running on about an hour of sleep and I’d spent the whole night thinking I was going to be murdered, but there was no-one to cover my shift if I called in sick and anyway I was kind of convinced that if I went to sleep now she would find me. So I got up and blearily took a shower and took the tube to work. I almost missed my stop, actually, so when I got in the first thing I did was warm up the espresso machine and make myself an entire twelve-ounce cup of espresso. A tiny little warm haven in a Starbucks where the heating hadn’t come on yet. When Adil came in ten minutes later he told me I looked like death on legs. I should have told him what happened, but I didn’t. I’m not sure why. It felt too… personal.

But Monday night it happened again. I wasn’t any less terrified just because I recognized her now. No, I was _more_ terrified, because I knew she really would strangle me. But she didn’t, not then. She just sat on my chest until I thought I would suffocate, and then she slid off to sit curled up on the foot of the bed. I turned on the bedside light again because despite everything she _was_ less scary when I could see her properly. I noticed she was in the same clothes as the last night, which is when I began to seriously consider whether ghosts were real. Again I started talking—I probably repeated myself a lot—but then I had this ridiculous sleep-deprived idea to ask her about her life. I probably said a lot of nonsense about oh, what was it like to be a ghost? She didn’t say anything so eventually I made up a name for her—it was something stupid like Squeezer Robinson—and I was starting to go on about her extended family of strangulation ghosts when she apparently got fed up and said her name was Nenadi Baikie. And apparently I was so sleep-deprived that I reached out my hand for a handshake… and she actually shook my hand. Her fingers were still ice-cold, and her grip was terrifyingly strong, but she shook my hand. That’s the last thing I properly remember that night, except for vague impressions of trying more and more ridiculous things to keep myself awake. And finally slumping against my pillow, unable to keep my eyes open, and feeling her fingers on my neck again.

And then my alarm went off, and it started all over.

I was pretty damn sure she was going to come back that next night too, and every night until she finally did kill me, so I asked Kristina if I could stay at hers just for the night. I couldn’t couch-surf forever, but if I could just get one good night of sleep it would be easier to face her again.

Nenadi did find me, of course. Just later in the night, so that she never even had a chance to start trying to choke me. I nearly remember that conversation; I managed to get a couple sentences out of her. No, she wasn’t dead. Yes, she was a human being. Mostly. I remember the flat way she said that: “Mostly.”

Thursday night I stayed at Adil’s. His family are lovely, actually. It didn’t stop Nenadi from finding me again, but I was able to sleep some at least. Friday I went back to my own flat because I didn’t want anyone to be suspicious. I know that’s daft. They would be right to be suspicious that I have a—what, a stalker? A supernatural stalker who’s an omen of my death? I’m almost afraid that if anyone else tried to look at her I’d find out she’s not real, and I don’t know why but that scares me the most.  Besides, I’m getting used to it. Nenadi is a mystery. I almost feel like if I can find out why she’s really coming for me, it will all finally be over. Don’t I want it to be over? I’ll miss her.

This morning in the dark she leaned over me and slid her cold hands around my neck and said in her low soft voice, “Just let go. Let yourself die. You’ve been waiting too long.”  And I wanted to. I was ready to die in that moment before my alarm clock went off and she disappeared again. I guess… I just want someone to know about her, because I haven’t been able to find out anything. Look for her. Remember her. I think she deserves to be remembered.

 

Statement ends.

 

Followup:

I have indeed found very little information about Nenadi Baikie, except that her parents lived in Deptford until they died in 1999 and that she had no siblings. She is not registered to drive or vote, nor do any of the hospitals I have called have a record of her death. When I called Ms. Cui on the 19th to give her this information she did not answer her phone, and I later discovered that she had been found dead in her bed by her mother the day after she gave her statement, apparently of anoxia. I find it significant that there were no marks on her neck that would indicate strangulation, and that her body disappeared from the morgue on the same night it was brought in. 


End file.
